The present invention relates to displaying the location of nearby emergency vehicles on GPS map displays in vehicles to improve the situational awareness of drivers.
Drivers of vehicles often hear emergency vehicles but cannot determine their locations in relation to their own vehicle. Therefore drivers cannot immediately determine the best course of action for avoiding the path of approaching emergency vehicles. This cm create a delay or safety hazard for both vehicles and for drivers and passengers of nearby vehicles. Resulting confusion and uncertainty also leads to less efficient traffic flow when emergency vehicles are heard by a driver but not yet seen by the driver.
Most drivers already have access to their physical location based on OPS technology. Drivers of vehicles with built-in OPS receivers and drivers with mobile phone or other mobile based OPS receivers can see the locations of their vehicles on their moving map displays but they cannot see the locations of emergency vehicles on the same display, even when their presence is known because of their audible sirens and flashing lights. Behm (patent application US 2012/0313792 and subsequent patent U.S. Pat. No. 8,842,021) addresses the aforementioned problems with a complicated system that requires two-way communication to be established between an emergency vehicle and a separate Location Based Service (LBS) component and the establishment of two-way communication between the LBS and another vehicle, for indirectly handling comminations between the vehicles. Furthermore, such an LBS-based system would require a 3rd party service organization to set up and maintain the structure which would likely lead to additional operational costs that would get passed on to users.
What is needed to improve traffic flow and safety is a low cost, direct emergency vehicle-to-vehicle system and method to simultaneously display the locations of emergency vehicles onto the same moving map display that shows the location of their vehicle. More specifically, there is a need for a simplified, low-cost moving map display device showing the location of the driver's vehicle and the relative locations of emergency vehicles operating nearby. The existence of such a system would improve safety and traffic flow efficiency.